Paragraph Organization of Written Materials: The Influence of Conceptual Clustering Upon the Level and Organization of Recall.

Frase, Lawrence T.

Forty-eight sentences, which associated eight attributes with six chessmen, were clustered in paragraphs by chessman, by attribute, or by rote group (randomized). One-half of 42 high school graduates were told the conceptual structure of the passage before reading. Subjects read the passages for three 5-minute periods in order to learn the information and to evaluate chess play. Free recall was required after each reading. With the organized passages, recall was about 50 per cent higher than with the rote group, but the rote group showed as much clustering (78 per cent) as one of the organized passages. Conceptual preinformation improved performance as trials increased but did not influence recall clustering. Primacy effects were obtained for the organized passages. Application test scores, although in the same direction as recall scores, did not differ significantly. Application scores correlated only with recall of the attributes concerning how the chessmen move. References and tables are included. (MD)